The best trips start before you board the plane. Spend a few evenings with the right film, show, game or book and you’ll arrive in China already half in love with it — and you’ll recognise the food, places and stories when you get there. Here’s a starter pack.
To get hungry:
food documentaries
- A Bite of China (舌尖上的中国) — the legendary documentary series that follows ingredients and cooks across the country. It’s the single best way to understand how deeply regional and seasonal Chinese food is. Watch an episode and your must-eat list will write itself (pair it with our seasonal food guide).
- Once Upon a Bite / Flavorful Origins — gorgeous Netflix-available series zooming into single regional cuisines (Chaoshan, Yunnan, Gansu).
The slow, soulful home cooking these documentaries celebrate — and you’ll be eating it within days of landing.
To feel the landscapes:
a video game
- Black Myth: Wukong (黑神话：悟空) — the 2024 blockbuster action game based on Journey to the West (西游记). Beyond the Monkey King legend, it faithfully recreates real Chinese temples, grottoes and statues (much of it scanned from Shanxi). It sent waves of travellers to seek out the actual sites — a stunning, playable primer on Chinese myth and architecture. (Fitting, since this site is named for that very journey.)
Sun Wukong, the Monkey King — the hero of Journey to the West and of Black Myth: Wukong.
To understand the history:
films
- The Last Emperor (末代皇帝) — Bernardo Bertolucci’s sweeping, 9-Oscar epic about Puyi, China’s final emperor, partly filmed inside the Forbidden City. Watch it before you visit Beijing.
The Forbidden City — where The Last Emperor was filmed, and a must-visit in Beijing.
- Farewell My Concubine (霸王别姬) and To Live (活着) — two masterpieces that carry you through a century of Chinese history, including the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) — essential background for understanding modern China.
To feel the action:
kung fu cinema
China’s gift to world cinema. Any of these will get you in the mood:
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (卧虎藏龙) and Hero (英雄) — wuxia at its most beautiful, shot across China’s real landscapes.
- Ip Man — the master who trained Bruce Lee.
- Enter the Dragon (Bruce Lee) and the Jackie Chan classics — the films that made kung fu global.
Real Shaolin kung fu — the living tradition behind the movies.
Tai chi in a city park — China’s everyday martial art, free to watch any morning.
To go deeper:
books
- Wild Swans by Jung Chang — three generations of women through 20th-century China, including the Cultural Revolution; the most-read way in to modern Chinese history.
- Journey to the West (西游记) — the 16th-century classic behind the Monkey King (and Black Myth: Wukong). A great companion read.
- River Town by Peter Hessler — a warm, observant account of everyday life in 1990s China.
How to actually watch them in China
A heads-up for once you arrive: Netflix, YouTube and most Western streaming are blocked in China, so download anything you want for the flight or hotel before you go, and set up a VPN if you’ll want them on the road. A little homework, and you’ll land already fluent in the stories China tells about itself.
